Look at My Banner Ads Dammit! [Infographic]

1994 was when banner ads first appeared? I bet they looked freakin’ awful.

Anyway, things haven’t necessarily improved much these days. A primary reason for their failure was “Banner Blindness” – a symptom of the predictable placement (and bloody ugly design) of the banners, making people blur them from their vision and focus solely on the content.

Marketers soon figured this out and started being even more annoying by putting them in the middle of blog post content (interruption marketing sucks!) so you tripped over them during your reading. Or more likely – hit the back button because you found it offensive.

Anyway, rant over. The point of this post is to examine who is looking at – and more importantly clicking – your banners. I think the most interesting stats in the infographic below are the ones about why people don’t click on your banners – you could learn something from that section.

I’ve also included a bunch of tweetable stats from the graphic at the bottom of the post so you can sound all knowledgeable ‘n’ such. You’re welcome.

This is my favourite:
“People are more likely to survive a plane crash than click a banner ad” [ tweet this ]

Oh and don’t forget that if you do manage to get a click on your banners that they should go to targeted landing pages to help you convert that valuable click into a customer.

About Oli Gardner

Unbounce co-founder Oli Gardner has seen more landing pages than anyone on the planet. He’s obsessed with identifying and reversing bad marketing practices, and his disdain for marketers who send campaign traffic to their homepage is legendary, resulting in landing page rants that can peel paint off an unpainted wall. A prolific international keynote speaker, Oli is on a mission to rid the world of marketing mediocrity by using data-informed copywriting, design, interaction, and psychology to create a more delightful experience for marketers and customers alike.
He was recently named the "The 2018 Marketer to Watch," in the under 46 category, by his mother.